


We're what's happening

by sheffiesharpe



Series: At Least There's The Football [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anthea's totally a ninja, Flirting, Gratuitous Harry Potter References, Greg Lestrade is good at football and has two nieces, Greg Lestrade is secretly punk rock, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Snogging, thank God somebody can cook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheffiesharpe/pseuds/sheffiesharpe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the week after karaoke, Lestrade has two good days, two not-good days, and one evening that's really all right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're what's happening

**Author's Note:**

> By way of a warning that doesn't fit into the ticky boxes: this piece contains references to violence against children and suicide. The references are non-graphic and are peripheral in that they are not directly associated with the main cast of this work, but they may be triggering. Proceed under advisement.

The night ends like that: overlapped palms, a steady rain. There isn’t another press of mouths, but Mycroft curls his fingers close. Once, he lifts his other hand, covers a laugh that Lestrade can’t find a reason for, but can’t help joining, either. And then it’s so much like being driven home by one’s parents that Lestrade laughs harder, holds one finger up to his lips. He wants to do the same against Mycroft’s mouth, but he doesn’t.

With difficulty, Mycroft straightens his face. “I believe I will ascribe this to the gin.”

For a moment, Lestrade is afraid he means all of it, but Mycroft’s still holding his hand, and a bit of a swerve around a rubbish bin blown into the street makes their knees touch, and they stay that way. Lestrade says, “It’s less inappropriate than your brother at a crime scene.”

Mycroft takes a deep breath. “Be relieved you’ve never had to go to a funeral with him.”

Lestrade gets out of the car in front of his building. They don’t make plans, but Lestrade makes certain to mention that he’s not working tomorrow. Just in case.

***

The next morning, he does have a proper lie-in: he makes coffee, he gets back in bed, he reads. He checks his phone more often than he thinks he should, composes half a dozen texts he doesn’t send. One he does send: _Thanks for last night. It was a good one. Hope the morning’s agreeing with you._

He doesn’t get a text back, but it’s well into mid-morning, well into the time of day when Mycroft is likely busy, and well past the time he should do something if he’s got the time to do it. He leaves in his earring, opts for the leather jacket again, and he tries to convince himself in the mirror that he isn’t hoping to run into anyone in particular. He gives up on convincing himself of anything while he’s putting product in his hair. And then he’s off on errands: a trip to the bank, a cruise through his favorite secondhand music shop, maybe a trip to the grocery. And maybe a bit of meandering: he finds himself within shouting distance of John’s surgery, and he ducks in. Sarah sees him first, says his eye looks much better.

“It’s not bothering you, is it?” She steps in close and peers.

He shakes his head. “Just wondered if John was about.” He could have texted, but he didn’t.

“He’s with a patient, but if you fetch the coffee he’s supposed to, I’ll let you have ten minutes.” She’s grinning, but she’s serious, too. John’s a good doctor, but he comes with a lot of demands, or rather, with Sherlock. His time is at a premium. So Lestrade leaves the surgery with a list of beverage orders and an address. When he comes back, both hands balancing cardboard trays of steaming cups, he’s mobbed. John edges out of his office, looking like coffee is the only thing that will save him. John, he remembers, doesn’t even particularly _like_ coffee, but he finds it useful.

“Inspector—” Worry flickers, the expression of _what now_ on his face, but it smoothes away as he takes in Lestrade’s obvious lack of checked button-down and cotton-twill trousers. He squints at the earring. They’ve only ever really gone out for drinks after the Yard.

Lestrade rolls his eyes. “Come on.”

“I thought the hole was a freckle.” John glances over his shoulder like he expects Sherlock to materialize, to say, _on what planet does a permanent puncture in soft tissue resemble a significant concentration of melanin?_ Thankfully, he doesn’t. “So. What brings you in?” He sips at his coffee, never mind the roiling steam. Out in the hall, Sarah holds up both hands. Ten minutes, starting now.

“Nothing much.”

John ignores that, waits.

“How’s Sherlock?”

“Like a caged tiger but healing properly, somewhat against his will.” He glances over his cup. “Did you know he can screech on the violin with his bloody feet?” He still smiles a little when he says it.

“I did not know that.” He wonders if Mycroft knows that. Likely. And about Mycroft—he tugs at his earring, and John looks from his hand to his face to his hair and back again. “Sherlock’s brother—”

John stands straighter. “The one Sherlock calls the most dangerous man I’ve ever met?” Sherlock’s dramatics considered and Moriarty excepted, of course. He glances at the hallway where Sarah is guiding one of her own patients back to her office. “What’s he done?”

 _Taken me out for a two-month-old birthday? Looked fantastic?_ Lestrade shakes his head. “Nothing. Well. I’m guessing he’s done a lot of things.” He wonders how he managed six hot beverages and didn’t get one for himself. “Just. What’s he like?”

Now John’s head jerks like he’s burned his tongue. But he swallows his coffee, appears to make a conscious effort to answer well. “I can’t say I know any more than anyone else. What you see is what you get—smug, clever, frighteningly well-connected, at times rather funny, and he and Sherlock don’t get on. But he is actually, clearly, quite invested in trying to look after his brother, which is a bloody thankless task.” John shrugs. “I think he’s occasionally terrifying.” Not in the usual way. Not the grievous-bodily-harm that scares most people but _not_ John Watson. The…Holmesian quality. On that count, Lestrade might agree, but he isn’t put off.

“Yeah,” he says, “but what else?” He’s got the time to cook—he could try a dinner invitation. “Any food allergies? Anything you’ve seen in Sherlock that might be genetic?” Wheat allergies could be like that.

“Christ,” John says, “I think it’s all bloody genetic with them.” He rubs his eyes hard, then he stops, stares at Lestrade. “You aren’t—”

He shrugs. “Thought about asking him to dinner. Don’t want to have him end up here.” That’d happened once. He’d accidentally discovered a man’s stone fruit allergy with an apricot tarte tatin. Nothing like anaphylactic shock on a second date.

John takes a deep breath. And he answers the question, no matter how much his brain appears to be cramping behind his skull, and that’s exactly why Lestrade likes John.

“No allergies that I know of, though Sherlock will not, under any circumstances, eat haricots vert, for reasons he refuses to explain.” He rolls his neck until something crackles. “Of course, Sherlock only eats at all half of the time, so I’m not much of a judge, I expect.” A glance down and to the left, which means that he’s feeling slightly guilty about something. “And I probably oughtn’t tell you this, because it’s none of my business and it is something he’s sensitive about, but maybe that’s why I am telling you, so you can—” His chin tips up, toward the ceiling, his voice thinning out until it’s almost inaudible, and Lestrade is absolutely certain that John should be getting more sleep. “Anyway. He’s said he’s on a diet, and Sherlock’s always a prat about it, so there’s probably something important there. Didn’t notice anything bizarre at dinner the other night—he had something with snapper—so he, at least, still eats food.” By the time he finishes, John appears to be addressing his coffee cup. The tip of his head bares a slight purple mark, beneath his collar, on the back of his neck.

Lestrade takes the information as it stands, then ducks until he can look up at John. “You all right?”

“My life is very bizarre,” John says. “And Sherlock’s likely wearing a hole in the hall carpet just now. Hasn’t slept in three days. I’m tempted to tranquilize him.”

“Try cricket. On the telly.” It had worked a few times, long ago, when working with Sherlock had also meant a lot more of being Sherlock’s minder. Sherlock complained for fifteen minutes straight, and then something about the white and the green and the loping rhythm of the test had lulled him. He thinks—“There should be an England in South Africa replay on late.”

“Oh, I’ll be up.” There’s a kind of wry grin on his face, and Lestrade wants to know what’s going on, but he’s also sort of afraid that if he asks, John will tell him. And some things, once known, cannot be unknown.

Sarah leans in, taps on the door. John finishes his coffee, adjusts the lie of his arm in the sling, and that’s that. Lestrade resolves to find something for Sherlock to do, before the end of the weekend, for John’s sake if nothing else.

***

He’s in the music store when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He answers without looking at who’s calling, hoping he’s pleasantly surprised. He is.

“I am very well, thank you.” Mycroft’s voice is quiet but pleased-sounding. Lestrade has to listen hard to hear him over Talking Heads playing in the background. He slips into one of the listening booths in the back with his phone, feels a strange thrill at doing so.

“I haven’t interrupted anything, have I?”

“No, just doing a bit of shopping.” He opens the case the previous listener had left in the booth: a Stones greatest hits album. Crime against nature. Part of the destruction of the artistry of album composition. “Hear anything good lately that I should listen to?”

“I daresay it’s not exactly in keeping with your professed favorites, but there’s a brilliant American cellist by the name of Zuill Bailey who is eminently listenable.” Mycroft seems happy when Lestrade asks for a spelling of the artist’s first name.

“I’ll look into it.” He doubts he’ll find something like that in here, but it reminds him to look for _The Ring Cycle_. He’s never heard all of it, and definitely not in order. “How’s things?”

“Middling.”

Which Lestrade will take to mean not in a state of disaster, which might bode well. He decides to commit to the idea, since he bothered John on the topic already. “Does that mean you won’t have to navigate an international crisis later? Say, sevenish?”

Mycroft’s voice is breezy, underwritten with a puff of laughter. “I multitask with alacrity. What are you proposing for ‘sevenish’?”

“Dinner.” Lestrade isn’t sure he’s ever heard anyone actually use ‘alacrity’ out loud.

“Where shall I meet you?”

Lestrade didn’t think it would be that easy. “Mine?” He shrugs, even though Mycroft can’t see it.

There’s a pause that Lestrade takes for surprise. “May I bring anything?”

“An appetite.”

Mycroft makes a bemused sound. “Red or white?”

Lestrade thinks a moment. “Give me a challenge. What do you want to drink? I’ll cook to match.” It’s been a while since he’s done that, but there’s a slight thrill in his chest at the thought.

“Blanc de blanc?” There’s the sound of a door, paper rustling. “Or have I been too specific?”

“You know there’s no such thing as too specific.” It’s been a long while since he’s had a good bubbly. He licks his lips, suddenly eager to get on with it. “Sevenish.”

“Indeed.”

The call ends. Lestrade pushes out of the listening booth, and what had been intended as a leisurely paw through the aisles turns into a focused search, and it doesn’t turn up the cellist, as he’d expected, but it does turn up _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ on CD—an eight-disc set, none of which seem scratched at all—and a copy of _Global A Go-Go_ that he can keep in the office.

He plans his menu as he walks, and for the better part of a block, he thinks about calling his father, to run it by him. That’s ridiculous. He’s been on one date, and maybe he’s come to accept that it was, in fact, a date, but he’s got no desire to pour that tempest from its teapot just yet. His mum is still disappointed about the thing with Will not working out. She’d liked Will, and they’d been more or less together for a little over a year, his longest relationship since he was thirty. Added to that, there’s no sense in trying to explain to either of his parents what he doesn’t quite get himself—what could he and Mycroft Holmes possibly have to do with each other in any significant way—especially not when what his mum wants, every time he mentions a bloke by name, is a plus-one for Christmas dinner, someone to side with her about these “bloody Lestrades” when he and Bob and their father are on about something, someone to have a cup of tea waiting for him when he gets home. Even if he doesn’t enjoy, and never particularly has enjoyed, a cup of tea.

He’s grateful when the clear, briny scent of the fishmonger derails the whole train of thought.

Two shops later, his fingers cut in by the weight of mussels and lemons and fresh pasta and tomatoes and garlic and grapefruit and a bunch of parsley so big he’s going to have to make tabbouleh or something like that later in the week, he has the same queer feeling across the back of his neck as he had the other morning. He looks around, but he doesn’t see anyone. His last stop is for tea, tea particularly for John, who likes good tea but buys crap tea most of the time because Sherlock doesn’t care and he won’t splurge on himself. And John’s apparently getting put through the Sherlock-wringer on a daily basis of late. He picks out a robust Scottish blend. John looks like he could use that sort of thing just now, and when he turns back to the shelf, there’s a beautiful tin of Assam sitting in the place he’d taken the Scottish from, and it certainly wasn’t there twenty seconds ago. There’s no one else in the aisle, and everything smells like the bizarre chocolate mint tea spilling artfully from a container, across a plate, on the endcap of the little aisle. The curved security mirror behind the small counter shows one sleek black pump stepping out of the store, an intentional click of heel on the threshold. Not a mistake. The rest of the Assam display is behind him, and all of the tins are sealed, neatly, carefully. He doesn’t take the one that materialized on the shelf, but he does another from the rest of the display, and when he checks out, the clerk says he’s going to love that one.

Walking home, past Baker Street where he leaves John’s tea with Mrs. Hudson and doesn’t go upstairs because she says that the noise has finally stopped, which means that Sherlock might have passed out on his own, which means that John may get somewhere between ten and twenty hours of peace at the rate Sherlock’s been going, he is certain that the normal reaction to this should be at least annoyance. More particularly, he should be, as Betsy and Corrie say, totally creeped out. He’s not, and he knows that’s probably another sign that his own brain is a little warped, as the Yarders have said regarding his trust of Sherlock Holmes. He’s not creeped out; he’s grateful, actually, and he suspects that he might be tempted to behave similarly, were he in her shoes.

***

He wonders if anyone has ever scraped a granita to “Erda’s Warning” before today. The thing he likes best about the music is that it makes him want to try to sing along, even though he doesn’t know the lyrics at all, hasn’t got even close to the necessary range (particularly when it comes to the sopranos, of course). And the whole time he’s prepping for dinner—cleaning and chopping and getting his _mise en place_ ready (getting his mess in place, as his mother says)—he’s rearranging the opera for any number of punk and rock icons. Which is an activity that he’s always enjoyed, one of the things that he thinks about while he’s walking, while he’s on the Tube.

At quarter to six, he showers, shaves, re-does his hair. He thinks about opening up Skype to see if the girls are about, since he’s getting close to the end of _Half-Blood Prince_ , but they’ll know something’s up and then Bob will know something’s up, and it’s too soon for that. So he leans against the countertop and reads some more, scraping his grapefruit and ginger granita every fifteen minutes. He sets a timer to be certain: he’s not going to go to all of this trouble to have a solid lump of pale pink ice to show for it.

 _Show-off_ , echoes Bob’s voice in his brain, and he grins into the crystalline flakes as they mound against the fork. Maybe a little.

At half six, he leaves his front door ajar. It’s an old habit, probably not his smartest one, but he doesn’t like making people he’s expecting wait for him to come to the door. The invitation in, this way, is automatic. It feels more hospitable. His father had the original front door of his restaurant moved to the side street so he could leave it open whenever the weather allowed without ending up with too much traffic noise.

At five minutes past seven, Mycroft is there. He looks at a pocket-watch while he stands in the doorway. “Is this acceptably ‘sevenish’?” There’s a bag that, by its weight, can only hold the wine. He comes into the kitchen, taking in the fat novel on top of the toaster oven, the music—he grins—the array of ingredients gathered in their separate places atop the cutting board. And while Lestrade is moving the book back to the sitting room, he sees Mycroft’s eyes slide the length of him. He likes that a lot.

“I think anything between six and eight counts. John’s window’s only ten minutes on either side. Depends who you ask.” Marisol’s family’s version of “sevenish” is any time between five and ten. Mostly, Mycroft looks scandalized at the startlingly loose interpretation of time. Lestrade grins, holds out his hands for the wine.

And he realizes that he hasn’t got any glasses that are even a little bit appropriate for a sparkling wine.

Then Mycroft lifts the bottle out with one hand, holds two champagne flutes in his other, the glasses inverted, the stems held gently between his fingers. When Lestrade reaches, Mycroft curls his hand into a loose fist, which pushes the glasses upright. Lestrade could just slide the glasses from between Mycroft’s fingers, but instead he uncurls the digits with his own, cradles Mycroft’s hand and then the glasses. And retreats to the edge of the sink to open the wine, which feels perfectly chilled, but one never knows. Luckily, the cork eases out under his fingers without incident, and he pours.

Mycroft accepts his glass with another smile. “Thank you,” he says. “You’re quite good at that.”

“I worked front of house for my da for a bit.” Probably a bit earlier than he should have, but that’s neither here nor there.

“And back?” He glances at the cooking apparatus, the knife and kitchen towel.

He nods, gets the mussels into their hot pot with the garlic and butter and white wine. The pasta water sits at its boil for another two minutes, and then everything is coming along all at once. This is the part he likes best about cooking, the last flurry of activity, and it’s so much better when it’s only for one meal, not trying to ready half a dozen at once. He checks his granita one more time, makes a big show of not letting Mycroft see what he’s doing in the freezer.

Mycroft only raises an eyebrow toward the bowl of kitchen scraps, the curls of grapefruit peel and the ginger pulp.

“Goddammit,” Lestrade says amiably, and Mycroft laughs, sips at his blanc de blanc. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, fantastic. Lestrade says so.

Mycroft leans against the empty doorframe, and it seems to Lestrade that the action is new to Mycroft—leaning—he looks just slightly off-kilter—but he likes looking up and seeing him there while he shakes the pot of shellfish, stirs the pasta gently.

“I had to make sure the vino could keep up with you in the kitchen,” Mycroft says. “Why ever leave it?”

The compliment makes him want to kiss him again. Lestrade scoops the opened mussels from the pot, removes the one that didn’t open (because there’s always at least one that won’t), and drains the pasta before he replies. He avoids the free facial joke as the steam clouds up from the sink. “Because I was going to be the next Joe Strummer.” His limited vocal range and utter inability to write music notwithstanding. He tosses the pasta with the sauce from the mussels, gathers the plates from the table. “And I like _this_ ,” he says, gesturing at the whole kitchen, the two people in it. “Not twelve-hour shifts of shouting and madness and chaos and dealing with smart-arse—” He glances up at Mycroft, who’s biting his lip. “Well. All right. I don’t like those things in the kitchen.” He plates everything, garnishes with an artful sprinkle of parsley and wedges of lemon. “Besides,” he says. “With the Met, I have access to handcuffs.” Which he has used on Sherlock. They almost worked. Once.

Mycroft’s eyebrow quirks. “I can see how that would be useful.”

Lestrade can’t decide if that’s supposed to be naughty or not. He knows how he’d like to interpret it. But he just tops up their glasses, and if he’s incredibly smug after the first bite, he thinks he’s earned it.

After dinner, there is the granita, and it has come out almost exactly as he wanted to, though next time, he’d like to up both the ginger and the sugar. As it is, though, it’s perfect with the last of the sparkling, and at the first bite, Mycroft makes a pleased sound. He turns his spoon in his mouth, and Lestrade imagines the curve of his tongue filling the silver hollow. _God_.

Then he makes tea, and he does all of it in a small pot on the stove. Mycroft watches him in a politely horrified way, and he’s glad that he’d put the tea he bought in another container, something that would actually be properly airtight. The tin it had been in, without its plastic seal, was pretty, but that’s about it. He’s got the tin in his closet, ready to send to the girls when he finds the right thing to put in it.

“You don’t have an electric kettle.” That he doesn’t have a proper teapot is probably a terror too frightening for Mycroft to voice.

“You’re sitting down, yes?”

Mycroft looks at him. “Obviously.” His tone is exactly like Sherlock’s, though he pronounces all of the syllables, where Sherlock sort of swallows the “ou,” so it becomes _obvisly_. John has started to do that, too, though it’s not a word he uses often.

Lestrade hits the button on his coffee maker and sits down, too. He reaches across the table, takes one of Mycroft’s hands in his own. “I,” he says, “don’t like tea. I never have, and I don’t suspect that I ever will.”

Mycroft’s gasp is clearly part of the staging, but he does have this sad and stricken look that Lestrade suspects is not mock at all. “My god.” But he leaves his hand between Lestrade’s, his fingertips still cold from the granita.

“Yes, I know.” Lestrade presses his hands together a little more, feels Mycroft’s fingers curl around his left hand for a moment before Mycroft stands, strains the tea and pours Lestrade his coffee.

“Luckily,” Mycroft says, putting down the mugs, “you have a number of other admirable qualities.”

Lestrade feels his cheeks heat, which is interesting. He doesn’t usually blush, but there’s something about the way Mycroft says things, so crisply, so cleanly—it’s weirdly exciting.

They’re laughing about some of Sherlock’s exploits, and Lestrade is in the process of trying to decide how he wants to suggest moving the evening to the sofa when there’s a knock at the door.

“Excuse me,” he says, and if this is Sherlock, he’s going to kill him and if Sherlock’s dead, there won’t be anyone who will be able to find the body. But it isn’t Sherlock. It’s Anthea.

“I apologize, but is Mr. Holmes still here?” Her eyes flicker over him, his tight t-shirt, over his shoulder to the empty couch. She leans a little, enough to glance into the hall, towards the bedroom.

“Anthea?” Mycroft appears over his shoulder.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but your mobile wasn’t on, and there’s been a situation.”

Lestrade sees her take in Mycroft’s still-immaculate state of dress.

“The nature of which—?” Mycroft says, but he’s taking his coat from the rack.

While his back is turned, Anthea gives Lestrade a strange look, something that is almost apologetic, but there’s something else. That feeling prickles again across the back of his neck, and Anthea tells Mycroft that the details are in his mobile. Then she’s gone, into the hallway and down the stairs. They’re left staring at each other, and Lestrade can still hear her feet on the steps.

“Thank you,” Mycroft says. “This has been wonderful, and I am sorry to interrupt it so.” At his side, his left hand curls into a fist, then relaxes, and he leans in, quickly, and kisses the corner of Lestrade’s mouth. There is nothing practiced, nothing comfortable in the gesture, but the look in his eyes is something Lestrade isn’t going to forget any time soon.

He watches the turn of Mycroft’s shoulders, and once Mycroft is around the corner, he sighs. While he’s cleaning up, he starts _Die Walküre_.

***

It’s Saturday, and Lestrade finds himself waiting on Forensics to get their shite together so he can get on with the day, and he’s staring at the date on his phone when he’s reminded of something. _Fact_ , he texts. _On this day in 1977, Iggy Pop released_ The Idiot _, one of the most interesting musical collaborations in British rock history._

An hour later, he feels his mobile vibrate in his pocket, pulse, and go still. Direct to voicemail. Two hours later, he gets a chance to listen to Mycroft’s message. It’s a clip of “Nightclubbing,” the first few lines of lyrics, and a peculiar giggle that he knows can only be Mycroft’s, and after _we’re what’s happening_ , a crisp, female voice saying, “No, sir, that is most certainly _not_ what is ‘happening’. Do not use my mobile for YouTube.” That can only be Anthea. The message closes, nothing else there, but Lestrade has to hide his face behind the file in his hand, pretend the laugh is a yawn, while Anderson walks him through the lab results. The sour look on Anderson’s face suggests that a faked yawn is just as unacceptable as the very real laugh that wants to bubble out.

He’s walking out of the Yard, done for the day, and his phone rings again. It’s Mycroft.

“Would you join me for dinner? I’m sorry for the late notice, but plans changed and I’d like to make up for—”

“When and where?” He hopes, can’t bring himself to say out loud, that he’s only wearing his usual work clothes and he’s not going back to his office to get his emergency tie from his desk drawer. Rule one if you ever want to truly leave work: when you leave, _leave_. He is generally abysmal at it.

Mycroft names a Thai place in Lestrade’s neighborhood, actually, his favorite within striking distance of his Underground line. And Mycroft’s target time is exactly what it should take him to get there if the trains are running more or less smoothly. Which they are. He calls that coincidence and is okay with the stretch.

He’s standing on the kerb outside when the black Jaguar pulls up, and both Mycroft and Anthea step out. What he wants to do is kiss Mycroft’s cheek and shake Anthea’s hand, but he makes himself do the reverse.

“Shall we?” Mycroft points with the tip of his umbrella. The car slips away.

“You’d be welcome, too,” Lestrade says, to Anthea. It might be nice—necessary—to figure her out more, but, more importantly, it feels bloody rude to leave her out.

She gives him an indulgent smile. “You are very kind,” she says, and she walks away, weaving the sidewalk as she does something on her Blackberry. Mycroft says nothing about it, only holds the door, a faint smile on his lips.

They sit, a quiet table in the back that he’s not sure he’s ever seen before, and he pulls out Mycroft’s chair for him. After he’s done it, he’s not sure he should have, but Mycroft doesn’t look offended at all.

The suit today is navy, the tie shot through with thin, thin lines of soft blue between the pearl and the grey. Lestrade’s simply admiring the view when he glances at Mycroft, whose smile is small and secretive.

The server, Sujit, is hovering just at the edge of his sight, and she’s probably confused that he’s even sitting in. He nearly always gets takeaway, and when he doesn’t, he likes to sit in the front, where he can watch the street.

Mycroft looks over the menu. “Have you been here before? Recommendations?”

“Of course I have. Which you certainly know.” He doesn’t even open his menu. He always gets what’s on special, unless the day has been awful, in which case, he gets drunken noodles. “Everything’s good here. The pad thai is a little heavy on the tamarind, which I like.” John doesn’t, prefers the pad see ew. John’s started coming out here for takeaway when he also needs a good reason to leave the flat for most of an hour—like clouds of noxious chemicals in the kitchen.

Mycroft looks up. “I suppose that isn’t surprising, given that it isn’t very far from your flat.” He turns a page. “But this was Anthea’s suggestion.” His own words sink in and he folds the menu placidly. “Well.”

Sujit brings them a pitcher of iced coffee, and their plates are garnished with tomato-skin roses and carrot and cucumber florets, dressed up within an inch of their lives. It’s more than a little excessive, which is the sort of thing that makes Jean Lestrade shake his head, but it’s one of the things that Lestrade likes about the place: enthusiasm. It’s also something to keep Sujit’s brother Dusit busy, and that’s good. Dusit’s got a bit of an artistic streak—the kind of artistic streak Lestrade has seen in alleys and on skips.

The table is small, and their feet jostle every time either of them moves at all. Lestrade splays his legs, his ankles outside of Mycroft’s, and after a moment, the pressure of Mycroft’s calf touches his. The contact is simply incidental and inevitable, but it still feels good.

“Are you busy later?”

Mycroft’s face is apologetic. “I’m afraid I am. I’m to be on a plane in two hours.”

The depth of disappointment that Lestrade feels startles him. “How long?”

“A week, I think.” Mycroft sighs. “It is difficult to tell with this sort of thing.”

What sort of thing, Lestrade doesn’t know. If he goes home and watches the news, he’ll likely get a few options from which to choose. All Mycroft will say is that he’s going to be a number of timezones away, and that it’s dreadfully difficult to pack a carry-on bag with the appropriate quantity of sunscreen _and_ all-weather clothing.

Mycroft changes the subject. “I’ve never seen anyone look so different, in and out of work garb.”

“No one says ‘garb’.” Lestrade stirs his drink with his straw. He wants to take the straw out of his drink, chew on the end of it, but he doesn’t.

“I say ‘garb’.” Mycroft props his chin on his fist, and Lestrade is weirdly pleased by his elbow on the table. He suspects that other people generally don’t get to see Mycroft Holmes’s elbows on tables, and he’s seen it twice. And this has to be the slowest-moving…thing…that he’s ever even considered pursuing if he’s thinking about the man’s elbows and they’ve been in the same place together a few times and there hasn’t even been one proper snog. Lestrade tries to pull his attention back to the conversation, to Mycroft saying, “And I don’t mean it as a judgment. Simply an observation.”

“Everyone looks different outside of work.” Even Sherlock, who generally looks like a dressing-gown-clad git when he’s not “working.” And if Lestrade takes it a little bit to the extreme, as bland as most of his Yard clothes are, it makes whatever qualifies as the weekend all the more satisfying.

“I don’t.”

Lestrade wants to reach, to curl his fingers around Mycroft’s elbow. “Yeah, you do. I’d just bet you don’t let yourself off the clock enough to see it yourself.” He suspects that Mycroft’s clothing never really differs, which is both heartbreaking and impressive, but it’s in his posture, his manner. That elbow. And maybe one real night out isn’t much to base it on, but— “How else do you explain the hat?” He hasn’t seen Mycroft wear one since, and it’s kind of a shame. “The hat was—very cool. Very Rat Pack.” Sexy. Really, really sexy. He doesn’t say that part out loud, but he pulls his drink closer, sips at it, slides his lips along the straw a lot more than is really necessary.

Mycroft’s pale cheeks pink a little, his mouth opens, closes, but then Sujit arrives with the check, and there Mycroft comes back into his own, taking the black folder from the table in one smooth motion. Lestrade supposes that he should protest a little, try to pay, but he gets distracted by Mycroft’s hands. And if his ankle nudges up against Mycroft’s, snug, intentional, there are worse things.

On the kerb outside, it gets more difficult. They haven’t really kissed in private, and so kissing in public just now is right out. Two grown men do not hug on the street, and they haven’t done that, either, and that seems even more intimate—more impossible—than the thought of checking Mycroft’s dental history right there on the hood of the Jag. It comes back to a handshake, a handshake that ends up taking their four hands combined, one that doesn’t want to end, and Mycroft says he’ll call when he’s back. Lestrade says he’ll consent to watching Spurs at Man City on Sunday if Mycroft’s free. The match is at four. Arsenal and Newcastle are Saturday night. He’s hoping, desperately, that he’s not still at work then. For either match. He feels a little sick to the stomach at the thought forming in his brain: he’d rather miss Arsenal on Saturday night than Sunday’s match if Mycroft’s around. He thinks about John. Both of these things are proof: Holmeses cause madness.

“You know the schedule?” Mycroft’s middle finger is resting on the pulse-point in Lestrade’s wrist.

Lestrade doesn’t say he only memorizes Arsenal’s matches, generally, but he’s started keeping a weather eye on Tottenham of late, if only to store up potential ammunition, in the hopes of having an occasion to use it. He only nods, and Mycroft’s smile is dazzling. Or maybe it just feels like it.

“Sir,” Anthea says, quietly.

“Right,” Lestrade says. “Safe travels.” He doesn’t tell Mycroft to be careful. He glances at Anthea. She’ll do that for him, he suspects, and he can’t tell if that’s a nod or the natural movement of her head as she steps around to the other side of the car.

Mycroft only dips his chin, and then their hands part, and Lestrade stands on the sidewalk until the car is gone from sight.

***

Lestrade opens and closes his mobile in his pocket, tries to imagine the light through the generic blue background that the phone came with, the one he hasn’t bothered to change. He tries to focus on that and not on the memory of Betsy crying through the phone two nights ago, her hiccupping sobs and how hard she was trying _not_ to cry. _It’s not fair, who does that, Tío, why didn’t someone_ fix _it, why didn’t anyone_ help _?_. A boy in her school, a few years older, not even someone she really knew very well, dead. Overdose on someone else’s prescriptions. Not an accident. Bob said the whole school was having counseling sessions, redoubled efforts to combat bullying.

He tries not to think about any of that while he’s standing too near a black-bagged stretcher, two more already in the ambulance. The only consolation is that there’s nothing more for any of them to do, double murder and a suicide. Whatever leads are left are under the purview of Narcotics, anyway, and he is halfway into walking the four miles home from New Scotland Yard when his mobile sounds. It vibrates a split-second sooner than the ring starts, and he almost thumbs it into silence immediately, but it might be Betsy again, might be Bob.

It’s Mycroft. Something slight lifts in his chest, and he feels guilty about that, right now.

“You’re supposed to be in…somewhere.” In the one text he’d sent since he left, Mycroft had said he’d be back Friday. Maybe Saturday.

“Would you rather I were?” Mycroft’s voice is teasing, and he probably hears the sound of the street, the music spilling out of a young man’s old BMW.

He wants to say something teasing back, to pretend he’s in some sort of noisy bar, except for the sound of the bus ratcheting past. But all he can say is, “No.” He wants Mycroft _there_. The feeling is sudden, tight, immediate. He mashes the phone harder against his ear.

“Gregory,” Mycroft says, his voice frowning. “Are you all right?”

“It’s been a rough week.” It’s sad in so many ways that he’s almost become used to adults beating each other to death with cricket bats and broken bottles, to the ugliness he sees on a daily basis, but today was hard. What Bits and all of those kids are going through is hard.

“Is there anything I might do?” The weight of his voice conveys all of the potential implications of what Mycroft _could_ do, or could have done, which Lestrade has come to understand are vast. He means to say no again.

What he does is ask if Mycroft is free later. “Even if it’s late.” Just twenty minutes. One cup of coffee.

Mycroft asks if an hour is too soon. It’s never too soon. Lestrade walks a little faster. He’ll make it home in time to change, maybe even think about putting together some kind of dinner. Taking the Underground, with the changes he’d have to make, wouldn’t save much time.

But the rest of the walk home is quiet, the air cold and still and grey, and before he’s home, he’s wrapped back into his day and has gone through three sticks of gum and has bitten his own lip twice. He thinks, at every shop he passes, of walking in and buying cigarettes, but he doesn’t. When he’s home, he gets as far as the couch, hasn’t even taken his keys from the open door. He means to pick up yesterday’s socks, too. What happens is that the television falls on, and there’s today’s mess, the yellow tape, the gurneys, the neighbors knotted on the sidewalk. There he is, in the background. He turns it off before the newscasters get to whatever inane soundbite they cut from the interview. The little girl today was four years younger than Corrie. Jesus Christ.

He puts his head back against the couch, closes his eyes. The sound of knocking happens without him even hearing footsteps, and there is Mycroft, in the doorway. Now the plastic takeaway bag crinkles as he steps into the room.

“Stay,” he says, when Lestrade starts to get up. He puts everything down on the coffee table, then gets plates and glasses from the cupboard before he says _May I_ in his way that isn’t a question.

Lestrade is holding a full plate, has a pint glass at his left hand that shows that Mycroft isn’t very accustomed to pouring beer—two inches of head on a London Pride—when he says, “You don’t have to—” which is ridiculous because Mycroft already _has_.

His protest is waved away. “Allow me to do what I can.” He doesn’t ask what the cause is, which likely means he already knows, at least the part about today’s stabbing. Lestrade isn’t sure he wants to say anything about Betsy, not yet. Mycroft’s hand lands on Lestrade’s shoulder, gently.

That one bit of touch—Lestrade sighs and lets his head hang. Mycroft rubs once across his back, and he doesn’t say anything else, only sits there, present. Despite everything, this feels somehow perfect. Without quite knowing what he’s doing, he leans over, kisses Mycroft on the mouth. He seems surprised again, but this time, his lips press back and his fingertips flex a little against Lestrade’s jacket.

When he pulls away, Mycroft’s spine is even straighter than usual and his hand leaves Lestrade’s shoulderblade, though the motion is a slow slide from his right shoulder to the bottom of his left ribs. His smile is soft. “Eat,” he says.

Lestrade does. By the end of the glass, he even feels like moving. He takes care of the clean-up, sort of, and throws his suit jacket over the back of a chair.

“Thank you.”

Mycroft says a _you’re welcome_ that somehow seems to mean more than when most people say it, and he settles back, one arm along the arm of the couch. Lestrade looks at the space available, and he should put himself against the other side, or maybe in the middle, so they’re close enough to touch, but he doesn’t. He stays standing, looks again at the space.

“Is there something amiss?” Mycroft inches forward, and he looks so genuinely concerned—Lestrade wants to kiss him again. He doesn’t.

He says, “Can I—” and before he even finishes, Mycroft says, “Of course,” though he looks perplexed upon realizing that he doesn’t actually know what the question is. Lestrade can’t help but smile. And, he assumes that, as a Holmes, Mycroft will make it known if he’s not all right with the situation. He settles in against Mycroft’s left side, lifts Mycroft’s arm and drapes it over his own shoulders. The contact is amazing—better, more, and he makes a contented sigh. Against his own ribs, Mycroft’s breath hitches, and his fingers spread and curl around Lestrade’s elbow, tucking him close. The room is dim, quiet, only the traffic hum and the muffled bhangra from the Sikanders downstairs. He only wishes he weren’t wearing his work clothes, that Mycroft were wearing simply _less_ , however achieved. It feels wrong now to offer him Will’s things, to lend out his ex’s clothes to...well. They haven’t talked about what this is. Lestrade knows what he’d like it to be, no matter how far-fetched the idea, and Mycroft doesn’t seem to be discouraging anything.

After a few minutes, though, he levers himself up. “I’m going to change. Make yourself comfortable.” He nudges open the cabinet that holds his DVD collection. There’s nothing too embarrassing in it. “Maybe pick something to watch? I need some noise.”

Mycroft blinks at him like this is the first time anyone’s ever asked him to do that, but he nods.

In his room, he contemplates jeans. They’re the most appropriate option, but his day was shite and Mycroft’s already seen him covered in mud and in a football kit. And in his Hulk socks. So he puts on his flannel pants, the thermal. He has a fleeting thought toward putting product in his hair, walks out before he does anything particularly laughable.

Mycroft has shed his suit coat, at least, and _A Bit of Fry & Laurie_ is queued up in the player.

“You look much more at ease.” It’s the most complimentary way anyone’s ever said, “Just put on your pyjamas, why don’t you?” Lestrade would almost think he was taking the piss save the way his eyes flicker across the grey weave of his shirt. It does hug nicely. He tries to forget that it was Anthea, apparently, who purchased it. And the underwear. He settles back in on the couch, and this time, Mycroft raises his arm and tucks Lestrade close on his own. It’s much better without the thick material of his suit jacket.

For a while, it’s all rather perfect. The episode is funny, something that always amuses him, and Mycroft seems to be enjoying it. More, Mycroft’s arm curls him closer, infinitesimally, until Lestrade’s head is resting against Mycroft’s collarbone.

Mycroft swallows. “This—you’re comfortable?”

“Yeah.” He twists, glances up. “If you’re not, say so. Or just move me around until you are. I’m easy.” As soon as he says it, he grins a little. He didn’t mean it like that, but any other man would at least make a joke about it, if not just take him up on it. He and Will had fucked twice before he’d even known Will’s last name. Mycroft seems to miss the innuendo entirely, and his expression is hard to parse.

“Would you rather I sat up?” He reaches for the edge of the couch to pull himself up, but Mycroft catches his hand, laces their fingers together.

“No,” he says, almost over Lestrade’s last word, and he keeps hold of Lestrade’s hand so he couldn’t sit up, not without letting go. “I just wanted to be certain.”

Lestrade nods and inches out along the sofa more until his legs are halfway on it, until he’s mostly diagonal across Mycroft’s torso. The buttons of his waistcoat nudge against his spine in one place, but that’s okay. Mycroft shifts once, then his arm curls over Lestrade’s ribs, snug.

“That,” Lestrade says, “is perfect.”

Mycroft’s lips land on the top of his head.

They’ve hit Lestrade’s favorite Fry monologue—how to be gorgeous—and Mycroft points out that he has rather a lot of Stephen Fry in his media collection.

“Because he _is_ perfectly gorgeous.” When the word is out, Lestrade supposes he meant to say “really talented,” but that much is hardly up for debate.

Mycroft doesn’t tease. Will had ripped on him mercilessly for it. What Mycroft does is say, “You really think so?” just as the camera hits an unflattering angle. Lestrade would have that man at any angle, and he says so. And he laces his fingers with Mycroft’s again, settles in as near as possible without crushing anything or making it too obvious.

The episode ends and another begins, and the tension finally starts to uncoil from the back of his neck. He thinks he might fall asleep if it weren’t for the part where he wants to remember all of this, how comfortable, how easy it is, how Mycroft’s fingertips occasionally slide across the back of his hand. Then sirens wail in the distance. It’s a sound he always hears, one he can’t block out and doesn’t want to, and any other night, his reaction would be one of professional curiosity—who’s onto what—but tonight, it only reminds him how quietly the ambulance left the scene today. He swallows and tries to keep still, to focus on the made-up curses and the spy spoofs. He tries to decide how Mycroft feels about those. But he finds himself chewing first his lip and then the one chopstick he deliberately left on the coffee table. His teeth dent the wood, the fibres giving with a feeling he can hear. The pencil he usually chews on in moments like these is on the end table beside the armchair. This is probably incredibly unattractive, particularly to someone like Mycroft who doesn’t seem to have any strange compulsions, any mannered tics or unconscious habits. But that doesn’t keep him from holding the end in his mouth, from rolling it between his fingers until he bites it again.

Mycroft ignores it all entirely in favor of watching Hugh Laurie do something ridiculous with a piano, at least for the first few minutes. Then, he takes the chopstick from between Lestrade’s fingers, puts his own fingertip against Lestrade’s lips, shushing even the motion. Lestrade’s first instinct is to bite. The gesture kind of pisses him off, the calm of it, the correction. But Mycroft doesn’t move it, and the urge to bite gives way to the urge to lick, but he doesn’t do either. He holds still and glares at the telly until Mycroft pulls his hand away. At some point, he must reach for the chopstick again—he doesn’t remember doing it, but there it is, in his hand—because Mycroft holds down that hand and puts his other index finger to Lestrade’s mouth.

“I will bite you,” Lestrade mumbles.

“A risk I am willing to take if it will save you from damaging your teeth.” His tone says he thinks Lestrade wouldn’t do anything of the sort.

So he does. Not too hard, but he bites down on Mycroft’s whole fingertip; to the first knuckle, the digit is in Lestrade’s mouth, his teeth pressing skin to bone. Mycroft jerks his hand back.

“Warned you.” Lestrade tips his head back to look at him, and Mycroft’s eyes reflect wide. “Oh, that didn’t hurt.” He tugs Mycroft’s hand back to his mouth, kisses the place he bit, gently. “There.” He’s again tempted to lick. Mycroft doesn’t move his hand.

He says, in a voice that seems too deliberately steady, “I still prefer that to your gnawing on a bit of wood.” His fingertip hovers half an inch from Lestrade’s mouth.

It’s sort of funny, distracting enough that his mind is occupied, that he’s not necessarily thinking about smoking right now, but he’s seen this episode (all of them) a dozen times and his mind keeps turning between work and Mycroft’s warm body against him, the way Mycroft’s still holding his hand to keep him from mock-ashing a chopstick. It’s only a matter of time before he presses his lips carefully to the pad of Mycroft’s finger, before he leaves an open-mouthed kiss. Mycroft’s skin is soft, the pad of his finger yielding.

Mycroft’s breath stills beneath him as Lestrade sucks on the smallest point, a circle the size of a cigarette butt, just for a moment, before pulling back.

“Sorry,” he says. He’s not.

“It’s all right.” Mycroft still hasn’t moved his hand.

Lestrade shifts a bit, gets himself a little more upright, and he does it again.

“Gregory.”

“I can stop.” He could also stop chewing on random writing utensils, if he tried hard enough, if he forced himself to think about what he’s doing.

Mycroft’s fingertip touches his mouth again, the slightest pressure against his bottom lip, the kind that would nudge his mouth open if Mycroft flexed his finger at all. The gesture is so little, the feeling so much. “Please don’t.”

He hopes Mycroft can’t see the reaction that those two small words cause. He just leans forward, draws the tip of Mycroft’s finger into his mouth, biting down gently, more gently than before, and scrapes his teeth along the pad of his finger. Mycroft’s arm around him holds fast, tight when he licks, like tonguing the filter, light, and he sucks softly. Time must elapse because the episode ends, but neither of them move. Lestrade takes Mycroft’s palm in one hand, unfolds the rest of his fingers, and nibbles at the tip of his ring finger. Mycroft actually makes a noise, something between a hum and a cough, a sound of surprise that Lestrade hasn’t heard before.

“Gregory.”

“You could call me Greg.” It’s shorter. People—regular people—seem to prefer that. He exhales over Mycroft’s skin, and Mycroft shivers.

“Would you prefer it?” Mycroft’s voice is a vibration in his chest, something Lestrade can feel through the back of his head.

He’d prefer to be doing this in bed, naked. He can’t believe he’s having a conversation about his name right now. Of course, he can’t quite believe that he’s basically smoking Mycroft Holmes’s fingertips, either. “You can call me what you like. Either is fine.” He wants to take the whole digit into his mouth, to suck hard. Maybe it’s stopped being about his cigarette fixation a few sketches ago.

“I find,” Mycroft says, and his hand splays across Lestrade’s ribs, the most force he’s shown yet. “I find,” he repeats, “I prefer the way ‘Gregory’ feels on my tongue.”

The words stagger the room, and Lestrade is certain that he’s never felt that way about his own name, and he might say so, except Mycroft says, “I should very much like to kiss you now.” As though he needs permission. As though this, of all things, is a question.

Lestrade sits up, turns, and he leans down to kiss him where he’s been pressed into the overstuffed arm of couch. That works, for a moment, except it requires bracing himself against the top of the cushions to avoid falling on Mycroft, which also means there’s too much space between them.

“Sit up,” Lestrade says, and he tugs him a few inches from the couch’s end, makes enough space for his own knee. Mycroft sees what he’s about to do, and he looks almost skeptical.

Lestrade steals a kiss and straddles his legs. He puts his hands on Mycroft’s shoulders, slides his fingertips under the thin bands of his waistcoat, and the thin, fine cotton of his shirt feels like almost nothing there. He grins when Mycroft’s eyes flicker closed at the touch. “Not that ridiculous now, is it?” It might look it—one grown man in the lap of another, one in pyjamas and one in a bespoke suit—but it feels wonderful.

Mycroft’s hands rest high on Lestrade’s ribs, right under his arms where it’s going to tickle like hell if he so much as squeezes, and his mouth doesn’t open until one of Lestrade’s hands slides up to the side of his neck. Lestrade suspects it’s a sigh, actually, but it’s still enough of an invitation that he takes it, tilts his head and deepens the kiss. At the touch of his tongue, Mycroft clutches at him, and Lestrade just barely manages not to bite either of their lips as he twitches hard.

Mycroft’s expression doesn’t make it any easier not to laugh. He pulls his hands back like he’s broken someone’s china. Lestrade takes both of his hands, puts them back on his body, lower, at his waist.

“I am,” he says, after another quick kiss, “so ticklish there.” He feels a lot more breathless than he should feel for such a brief thing.

Mycroft pets softly at his sides, over his kidneys. “I will remember that.”

There’s just enough composure in his voice that it worries Lestrade. “Maybe you’d better forget.” It could be dangerous. When Betsy figured it out, when she was seven, he’d spent a whole Christmas holiday getting jabbed with a pointy little finger and sloshing coffee onto his shirt. And the process repeated itself two years later, when Corrie was tall enough to do it, too.

“Forgetfulness is not part of my nature.” His hand follows the line of Lestrade’s spine, up and down, his touch light and slow. “Something for which I will be eternally grateful.”

In the context of having another trick up his sleeve now, it should be funny, but there’s also something strangely sad in Mycroft’s voice, in the soft seriousness of it. Lestrade pushes his own palms up Mycroft’s arms, wrist to shoulder, and Mycroft’s eyes drift closed again, his joints loosening more under the touch. Lestrade’s seen men look less affected by a mouth on their cocks, and the feeling thrills him. The expressions look so new on Mycroft, so genuine—he licks into Mycroft’s mouth again, sliding the tip of his tongue along the edge of Mycroft’s lower lip, cups his jaw. They hold steady there, and Mycroft’s tongue brushes his, their sinking into each other curling Mycroft’s hands harder on Lestrade’s shoulder, the back of his neck, until Mycroft’s fingers thread into his hair.

His short nails rake through the strands, fingertips rubbing at the soft-bristled place at the nape of his neck, thrusting back up to feel it bend against his palm. Lestrade knows exactly what Mycroft’s doing, because Will had done the same. _God_. Then both hands are in Lestrade’s hair, and they’re pressed together, chest to chest, and Mycroft’s left hand is a fist, Lestrade’s hair between his fingers, and he must make a sound— _so good_ —because Mycroft stops, lets go, pulls back.

His eyes are wide. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m behaving like—”

“Like someone enjoying himself.” Lestrade ducks, presses his mouth to the underside of Mycroft’s jaw, and despite the way Mycroft’s body has gone rigid again, he lifts his chin, bares himself more to that, arches into the contact. There’s only the slightest rasp of stubble, and Lestrade kisses that spot again. He wants to suck, to bite a little, but he isn’t sure how that would go over and Mycroft, if he’s anything like Sherlock, probably bruises like a peach. Thinking about peaches doesn’t make him want to bite any less, so he straightens himself again, looks at Mycroft. “Trust me. I like it.” ‘Like’ is not strong enough a word.

Mycroft looks dubious, and that seals it: this is new for him. Not in any kind of metaphorical way.

Lestrade thinks he should probably be ashamed of the sheer spike of lust that sparks in him, but the only thing he’s really capable of is kissing Mycroft again, throwing himself into the act, working his hands under the lapels of his waistcoat, as close to skin as he can get without starting to undress him. Mycroft startles, recovers, fists his hands in the fabric of Lestrade’s shirt for a moment before his hand slides up again, into Lestrade’s hair. He doesn’t pull again, but he does rub a little roughly through it, and Lestrade mouths at the other side of Mycroft’s neck until Mycroft’s head is thrown back against the sofa cushion. There’s something frustratingly hot about the way his stiff white collar keeps Lestrade from going further, and he’s not wearing cologne or aftershave or anything so noticeable, but there’s a scent there, something Lestrade can almost taste, that must be his soap. It reminds him of the tea Mycroft likes. Lestrade likes it _here_.

“Oh,” Mycroft says to the ceiling, his voice breathy and wondering, and Lestrade would like nothing more than to slide down between his legs, but he doesn’t. He wrenches himself away from Mycroft’s pale skin before he leaves more evidence than he should, and he means to sit back entirely, but it takes half a dozen more kisses until he can make himself do it. Mycroft slips his hands down over Lestrade’s shoulders, down his ribs, his thumbs trailing shakily across the ticklish spots. Lestrade squirms a little, grins.

Then they are looking at each other, and Mycroft raises Lestrade’s left hand to his lips, kisses the back of it.

Lestrade thinks he should laugh—who _does_ that?—but he can only turn his wrist, lace their fingers together.

“This is an improvement on my day.” He wants to push them together again, but he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t, even though there is something on Mycroft’s face, something bright and glad.

“I can’t say it was arduous on my part,” Mycroft says, and his cheeks are pinked hard. “Though I suspect that we could also call it an auspicious start to the next day, too.” He glances over Lestrade’s shoulder to the clock, and it’s heading towards three when Lestrade looks, too. When he turns back, Mycroft’s mouth is right there, kissing his, and this time, Mycroft’s tongue dips against his own, smoothes soft along his lips.

“I should go,” Mycroft says into the inch between them.

Lestrade nods, kisses him again. He remembers doing this when he was fifteen, ridiculously late for curfew, weighing the thick, sweet heat between himself and someone else against how much trouble he was about to be in. Now it’s how utterly useless he’s going to be at work tomorrow without some sort of miracle (because sleep isn’t coming anytime soon, not after this) against the fact that Mycroft hasn’t let go of his hand, against the marvel of Mycroft’s mouth.

From the corner of his eye, Lestrade sees one soft flash of light at the window, something bright down in the alley. It comes again, two pulses, two times. He wonders if it’s been happening for the last two hours. He hadn’t been paying attention.

“It’s Friday morning now,” Lestrade says. “Not Thursday night.” This time he does laugh. But he’s glad, too. He doesn’t much care for the thought of sending Mycroft home in a taxi at three in the morning, not given the fairly recent circumstances.

Mycroft sighs, but he looks a little fondly toward the window, too.

Lestrade inches back, stands, and his knees feel a little wobbly, a little stiff. “Your legs must be numb,” he says. He tries not to think about how ridiculous he must look, his half-hard prick bulging the flannel. Mycroft might be staring.

“Hmm?” His cheeks flare redder. “Oh,” he says. “No. I’m fine.” And when he stands, he seems to be, though his trousers are distended sharply, and he clasps his hands in front of himself, utterly failing, for the moment, at his usual nonchalance.

Lestrade leans in and kisses his cheek.

“You must cease and desist,” Mycroft says, his voice nearly plaintive, but one hand is somehow on Lestrade’s forearm.

“I’ll walk you down.” He passes Mycroft his suit jacket, and Mycroft carries his overcoat in front of himself as they leave the flat. Outside, at the kerb, is not the Jaguar, but a dark Triumph coupe, an old one. In the light from the streetlamp, it’s clearly Anthea in the driver’s seat. Lestrade hasn’t seen her driving any of the other times. The driver’s always been a bloke, the kind that looks like he could break you with his thumbs alone. But Anthea appears to be reading a book, using a headlamp with the red filter on, preserving her night vision, such as anyone can have in London.

“Ah,” Mycroft says. “She brought her car.” His lips quirk, but pleasantly.

“Nothing wrong, then?”

“Not at all.”

They lean in at the same time, touch lips once more.

“Thank you.” Lestrade smoothes Mycroft’s lapels, straightens his tie. There’s nothing he can do about the ruddiness of Mycroft’s mouth, the faint red stubble-chap on his neck. Nothing he can do and nothing he wants to do about it.

“Thank _you_ , Gregory.”

“Are we going to do this every time?” Lestrade raises an eyebrow.

“I hope so.” Mycroft affects innocence well enough that Lestrade can’t be certain if he means the thanking, the general quality of the evening, or the teenaged snogging on the sofa.

Lestrade opens the door, puts his hand at the base of Mycroft’s spine. “Go on with you.”

Mycroft goes, and Anthea’s headlamp switches off. Lestrade waves as Mycroft slides into the passenger’s seat. Anthea’s head turns, and she doesn’t wave back, but she nods, one crisp movement.

In New York, it’s half ten, but it’s also a Thursday night. Bob should be done in the kitchen, should be having a glass of wine with his staff. He dials on his way back up the stairs.

Betsy answers, the clatter of restaurant china and chatter all around her. Going to work with Da is still a treat to the girls, and it likely means that Betsy’s still having a rough time of it (particularly since she should have been in bed an hour ago), but she sounds delighted that it’s him.

“Oi,” he says. “What are you doing up?”

“Da let me do origami for desserts.” Little folded frogs and birds and butterflies that perch on the edge of a cup or a saucer. When the girls are around, there are few—very few—beverages that go unadorned. And that probably caused a minor explosion if Corrie wasn’t allowed to participate, too, but he doesn’t bring that up. Particularly because Betsy says, “What are _you_ doing up?”

He on the sofa, where they’d been. “Had a mate over. We might have watched a few too many episodes of _Fry and Laurie_.”

“ _Tío_.” She tsks at him in a way that is both Spanish and French at the same time.

“I’ll be awake for work if you’ll be awake for school.” He wants to hug her. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” she says, a little quieter. “I will be.” Then she brightens a little bit. “Mum is taking Mei and Corrie and me to see the Unicorn Tapestries on Saturday. Mei’s awesome. She’s Chinese, and she’s totally a Ravenclaw.”

The next fifteen minutes disappear in Betsy explaining exactly how and why Mei’s obviously a Ravenclaw and he is quizzed on the properties of unicorn blood and why it’s wrong to harm one. He warns her that the tapestries get a little Voldemort-y in that respect, and she says she knows. Bits is hitting the age at which she knows everything. Marisol blames the Lestrade side for that. No one argues with her. He’s just constantly impressed—proud as hell, really—that the girls really _do_ know so much.

“So,” Betsy says. “Your friend. What’s his house?”

“Dunno yet.” Lestrade rolls the forgotten chopstick across his knuckles. He has absolutely no desire to put it in his mouth. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to sort him for me.”

“Really?” Betsy almost squeaks on the word.

It sinks in: they hadn’t really even gotten to meet Will. Will had met his parents, but not Bob, not Marisol and the girls. They’d only seen pictures, platonic shots from weekend football and the like. He’s not sure what he’s just said. He doesn’t think he wants to know what he meant himself, either.

“Maybe,” he says, and he inches down, until he’s lying across the sofa. Are they what’s happening?

**Author's Note:**

> This is your Greg Lestrade-approved media guide for the episode. Links to YouTube.
> 
> [Nightclubbing by Iggy Pop & Co.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3OaMZojJRg)
> 
> [Zuill Bailey on NPR](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EkdIaEDOt0)
> 
> [How to be Gorgeous with Stephen Fry](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfKYrZTnhVE)


End file.
